Doorpost construction



y 7, 1953 F. A. sAAF 2,644,555

DOORPOST CONSTRUCTION Original Filed Dec. 27, 1945 2 Sheets-Sheet l y 7,1953 F. A. SAAF 2,644,555

DOORPOST CONSTRUCTION Original Filed Dec. 27, 1945 2 Sheets-Sheet 2Patented July 7, 1953 2,644,555 DOORPO ST CONSTRUCTION Fritz A. Saai,Aurora, 111., assignor to All-Steel Equipment Inc., a corporation ofIllinois Original application December 27, 1945, Serial No. 637,396.Divided and this application October 8, 1949, Serial No. 121,162

3 Claims. (Cl. 189-46) This invention relates to means for securingmetal doors in door openings formed by metal walls, and, for the purposeof the present disclosure, will be described as applied specifically tothe construction of metal lockers and the like.

A locker of the general type under consideration is of sheet metalconstruction throughout, the fabrication of the locker including suchoperations as shearing, forming, welding, riveting and bolting. The doorpanel is a sheet of metal having a front or 'face portion and inwardlyturned edge flanges.

For mounting the door panel separate hinge straps for carrying pintlesare commonly afiixed to the metal door post on one side of the dooropening, and the flanged door panel is apertured to receive the hingestrap so that the pintles may cooperate with inner surfaces of the doorpanel. The sheet metal of the doorpanel usually forms special socketsforthe two ends of each pintle,

and since such sockets are generally open or incomplete on one side,suitable retaining members are mounted on the inner side of the doorpanel to keep the pintle ends seated in the sockets. metal replaces theusual hinge strap. In 'an- The general of my mventlfm 15 to otherpractice the tongue of metal is formed to prov? g g q f door mountmg Qserve as a keeper in the combination of elements men y provl mg asimpler and more efficient for latching the door.

combination of elements, Wl'llCh combinatlon may above and other bjectsand advantages beuiazslembled w1th less labor than heretofore reof myinvention will become, apparent from the,

q l following detailed description taken with the ac- One ob ect of mylnvention is to provide a comcompanying drawings 32 22 1 i g i ig gg fggf fi ffi 233 In the drawings, which are to be regarded as lyillustrative:

binat1on the door post is so constructed as to mer-e reduce the numberof separate elements in the 0 1s perspectwe v1e w of stleel 5 5combination. More particularly stated, this obf preferred practlce{nventlom ject is to provide an integral hinge strap in the F 2 1S afragmentary perspectlve on an door post construction thereby making itunenlarged scale of an upper front m of the necessary to fabricatesuchastrap separately and y locker f bemg taken from mslde the furthereliminating t usual Step f attaching locker with the door closed;

the hinge stra t th d post Fig; 3 is a fragmentary vertlcal sectiontaken A group of objects of the invention relate to as ipdicated yhe1ine'33 of m 2;

the construction of th retaining member, per Figs; 4 and 5 arefragmentary horizontal secse. These objects include: to provide aretaintions 5 as infiicated by 111195 and ing member for mounting on theinner side of respectlvely, 0f t a door panel that will compensate atleast in 6 is a fragmentary o al v eW rom part for the weakening of thedoor panel by inside 17116} locker. with the (1001 s u p the aperturethat receives the hinge strap; to 1s a ra m ntary persp t v vlew of aprovide a retaining member that stiffens the edge 5:) sheet metal (1001'post formed w1th the bulge flange of the door panel; to provide aretaining, member that makes extensive reenforcing contact both with theedge flange of the door and the adjacent portion of the panel face; toprovide a sheet metal retaining member with two legs forming an angle,the sheet metal being swaged or ofiset across the vertex of the angle tostiffen the two legs with reference to each other; to provide aretaining member having exceedingly strong portions in contact with theends of the associated pintle; to provide a retaining member formed withbosses for retaining contact with the associated pintles; and to providea retaining member that may be mounted on a door memoer by placingtongues integral with one of said members through complementary slots intheother of, said members, and then bending or deforming said tongues toeffectively engage the two members with each other.

A further object of the invention is to provide a sheet metal door postconstruction that is adapted for various modes of cooperation with adoor. In general this objectis attained bybending the sheet metal of thedoor post upon itself to form a folded edge for one side of a doorway,

and in efiect'peeling off a tongue from the inner layer of sheet metalto extend laterally from the folded edge for various purposes ofcooperation with the door. In one practice the tongue of strap integraltherewith;

Fig. 8 is a perspective view of the retaining means for the pintleemployed in my preferred hinge combination;

Fig. 9 is a perspective view of a portion of a a top panel or sheet 2|,two door posts or jambs 22 and 23 forming the sides of a door opening, alintel member 25 at the top of the door opening, a sill member 26 at thebottom of the door opening, and a door member or panel generallydesignated 21.

The door panel 21 is mounted on the door post 22 by a plurality ofsuitable hinge means, generally designated 28. As best shown in Figs. 1and 11, the door panel 2'! may be provided with a lock29 having'a catch36, a handle 31 rotatable for retracting the catch, and a keyhole means32 for receiving a key to lock the latch against retraction.

The two door posts 22 and 23 are preferably of thefolded sheet metalconstruction shown in Figs. 7 and 11, respectively. In each of thesefigures the illustrated door post is of angular configuration with afront leg 35 and a side leg 36. Each of the doorposts is fabricated bybending a single sheet of metal back on itself to form a folded, edgeBifor one side of the door opening of the locker. The outer layer ofmetal and the inner layer of metal of each door post lie close togetherin the front leg 35 but in the side leg 36 are spaced apart to form adeep narrow channel 38 to receive the corresponding side panel 26 of thelocker. Any suitable expedient, such as spot welding, riveting orbolting, may be employed to secure the side panels 26 in the channels38, spot welding being preferred.

The lintel 25 at the top of the doorway may be of 'the same generalconstruction as the door post. Thus Fig. 2 shows the lintel 25 formedwith a front leg 46 and a top leg 6|, the top leg'providing a channel toreceive the margin of the top panel 2i. The door sill 26 may be ofsimilar construction.

A feature of my invention is the concept of in effect peeling away aportion of the inner layer of metal of thedoor posts 22 and 23 to. formtongues integral with the outer layers of metal for cooperation with thedoor panel 27. Figs. 10 and 11 depict one example in which the innerlayer of metal of the door post 23 is cut away, as indicated at 42, toform a laterally extending tongue 43 to serve as a keeper for engagementby the door catch 30. Fig. '7 depicts a second example in which theinner layer of metal of the door post 22 is cut away, as indicated at45, to form a laterally extending tongue 66 integral with the outerlayer of metal to serve as a hinge strap. The tongue or hinge strap 46is formed to cylindrical configuration to embrace a suitable pintle orhinge pin 41, the strap and pintle being elements of th hinge means 28heretofore mentioned.

Turning to the door construction, the door panel 21 is provided on itshinge edge with an inward flange 56 which may be return bent, asindicated at 5|, for reenforcement (see Figs. 2 and 4). In like mannerthe free or swinging edge of the door may be formed with an inwardflange 52 (Fig. 11), which flange may be return bent for reenforcement,as indicated at 53. The

4 top and bottom edges of the door may be provided with plain flanges55, as best shown in Fig. 2.

To receive each of the hinge straps 46 the door panel 21 is cut away toprovide a vertically elongated aperture 56, which aperture may be justlong enough to clear the hinge strap if the pintle 41 is removable-forinsertion after the stra is passed through the aperture. In my preferredconstruction the pintle 41 is fixedly embraced by the hinge strap 46,and the aperture 56 is sufficiently elongated to clear both ends of thepintle.

Preferably the sheet metal of the door adjacent the ends of eachaperture 56 is swaged or otherwise formed to provide two sockets 51 forthe two ends, respectively, of the pintle 41. As clearly revealed inFig. 9, each of the sockets 5'! is open from one side to permit thepintle 41 to be moved laterally into the sockets in the assemblyprocedure, and therefore suitable means, such as a retaining membergenerally designated 66',1is

provide two slots 6| in the door member in the vicinity of each of thehinge apertures 56, as best shown in Fig. 9. e I

The retaining member 66, which ispreferably a sheet metal stamping, isof angular cross-. sectional configuration with two legs, one leg 6-2-for extensive face to face contact with the inner surface of the doorpanel flange 50, and a second leg 63 for extensive face to face contactwith the inner surface of the face portion of thedoor panel. Integralwith the leg 62 are two tongues 65 and 66, corresponding to the twoslots 6| in the door panel flange 50. It is contemplated that the twotongues will be inserted into the slots and then bent, as best shown inFigs. 3 and 6, into positive engagement with the door panelfiange. Atleast one of the tongues may be straight prior to use, the tongue 65being thus shown in Fig. 8. Preferably the other tongue 66 is preformedor prebent for the positive en gagement with the door panel flange, asshown in Fig. 8, so that in assembling the retaining member intoengagement with the door panel the workman has the task of bending onlyone of the tongues. The assembly procedure consists of holding theretaining member approximately horizontal, inserting the leading portionof the tongue 66, swinging the retaining member upward about the tongue66 as a pivot or fulcrum to bring the other tongue 65, into the otherslot 6| and then bending or hammering over the tongue 65 to make theengagement positive.

A feature of the preferred practice of the inven-. tion is thestiffening of the retaining member '66 across the vertex of the two legs62 and 63 by suitably swaging or offsetting the metal to formreenforcements across the vertex; and afurther feature is the employmentof such offset toachieve purposes in addition to reenforcement.

In the particular retaining member 66 shown in the drawings, forexample, the two legs are stiffened by a simple longitudinal offset 61,shown in perspective in Fig. 8 and shown in cross-section in Fig. 4. Thesecondary purpose in forming the ofiset 6'! is to provide liberalclearance between the retaining member and the hinge strap Rather, thanout slots in the retaining member 66 I,

46 to prevent marring of whatever surface finish is given the strap,such clearance being apparent in Fig. 4. 7

Further reenforcements across the vertex of the retaining member areachieved by offsetting the metal to form two transverse ribs 68 spacedfrom the offset ends of the central offset 61. The additional purposeachieved by adding the rib 68 to the central offset 6'! is the formationthereby of what may be termed two bosses 79 for contact, respectively,with the two ends of the pintle- 47.

The described retaining member 60 provides inherent exceptional strengthat the points of contact with the ends of the corresponding pintle 4'!for a number of reasons. In the first place, the retaining member isbraced by extensive abutment both with the door panel flange 50 and theadjacent area of the face portion of the door panel. In the secondplace, the retaining member is exceedingly rigid by virtue of thecentral offset 61 and the two ribs 68. In the third place, the metal ofthe retaining member extends in all directions from the points ofcontact with the pintle, the retaining member being distinguished inthis respect from the use of relatively weak unsupported tongues incontact with the pintle. In the fourth place, the points of contact arestrengthened by the bosses ill, a domed sheet metal configuration beinstronger than a fiat sheet. It is also to be noted that the concavesurfaces of the bosses 70 provide relatively small areas in contact withthe pintles, with consequent reduction in hinge friction. I

My description in specific detail of a preferred form of the inventionas required by See. 4388 R. S. will suggest to those skilled in the artvarious changes and substitutions within the scope of my appendedclaims.

This application is a division of my earlier application, Serial No.637,396, filed December 27, 1945, now Patent Number 2,513,366, grantedJuly 4, 1950.

I claim as my invention:

1. A door post for cooperation with a side panel and a door comprising ametal sheet folded back upon itself to form parallel inner and outerlayers of metal which together comprise the front section of the-doorpost, the fold in the sheet forming a smooth edge Which defines. a pantof the door opening, and the free ends of the inner and outer layersbeing bent in the same direction at right angles to said front portion,but spaced apart the thickness of said side panel to form the sideportion of the door post, said space between the metal layers formingthe side portion of the post being adapted to receive said side paneland mask the included edge therein from view.

2. A door post as set forth in claim 1 in which an integral tongue iscut from the inner layer of the front section and extend toward saiddoor opening. 1

3. A door post as set, forth in claim 2 in which the free end of thetongue is formed into a hollow cylinder to receive a hinge pintle.

FRITZ A. SAAF.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS GreatBritain Mar. 31, 1936

